The Hill in the Dark Grove by Liam Higginson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Hill in the Dark Grove is a debut Folk Horror novel that has stuck with me long after I turned the last page. This story is deep, dark and honestly, sort of devastating.
We follow an older couple, Carwyn and Rhian, who’ve lived a quiet life as sheep farmers in the remote Welsh moutains. The land they live on, and work, is a family legacy, having been in Rhian’s family for generations.
Over the years, Carwyn and Rhian have found their social circle shrinking, as they’ve lost many friends and neighbors to old age and the pull of the city, and greater world. For the most part, they keep to themselves, grumbling about rising prices and the influx of English tourists.
Before you go thinking they’re just old people complaining about a changing world, they’re really not. For them, from their perspective, the changing world is threatening their way of life, and their land that they’ve poured blood, sweat and tears into over the decades.
Their world has become very small, but how long will they be able to maintain even that? And once they can no longer, what will become of them then?
When Carwyn finds a peculiar stone head in a little used corner of the farm, he believes he’s uncovered something remarkable. He soon realizes the artifact is just a small part of something much larger from deep history.
Even though Rhian urges him to leave it be, Carwyn becomes obsessed with uncovering the object, all while his daily farm chores go neglected. When sheep start falling ill, and an accident makes it even more challenging for the couple to survive, Carwyn insists uncovering the object and learning its original purpose could be the key to solving everything.
Something he didn’t consider though, is perhaps it’s buried and stayed that way for a reason. Perhaps the ancestors of the past have intended for it to be so. What’s gonna happen when he actually digs it up? What exactly is he unearthing?
I haven’t stopped thinking about this novel since I finished it a couple of weeks ago. There’s something very The Tommyknockers about it, whilst also being completely its own thing. I really liked it, even though I’m confident I didn’t pick up on everything the author intended.
I’m in awe. It’s not really a complicated story, but there are layers, and there were moments that I was a little unclear on where we were in time, and who exactly I was following.
One thing that never changed though was the pace and rhythm of the story. The writing is lush and beautiful. Higginson is an artist with words and The Hill in the Dark Grove does feel like a work of art.
I loved the unsettling atmosphere of the story. The uncertainty in Carwyn and Rhian’s life channels through the pages directly to the Reader. I felt for them. They were isolated and facing some real daunting challenges, and at such a time in their lives. It was difficult to read at times.
Aging, and what happens to us as we age, the way a person’s world can shrink, these are real world horrors that I think can be scary for a lot of us to think about. Though there was more going on in this story than that, I did appreciate Higginson’s exploration of those topics.
The incorporation of Welsh folklore and the mystery surrounding this object, and it’s pull on Carwyn, were also so compelling. Overall, it’s a great story.
I feel like I need to get a hard copy for my collection, so I can read it again and annotate. I would recommend it for fans of Gothic Fiction, or Folk Horror, but really I feel like it’s a story that could enjoyed by Readers of any genre.
Thank you to the publisher, Hogarth, for providing me with a copy to read and review. I’m looking forward to more from Liam Higginson.